"My only chance of actually winning is the race is if the Democratic nominee drops dead, but then there's a possibility I'll still lose because there's a demographic of dead voters out there that still may vote him in," Wander joked.

Wander believes the scandal involving the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police is the tip of an iceberg. He's running to send a message about "the corruption we're seeing in the city, which I think is the direct result of a century of single-party rule."

Wander wants to take on Pittsburgh's decades of population loss, saying, "People do not want to be in the city because the school system here sucks, so people move out of the city. Unfortunately, that's just the way it is."

The Republican candidate said other problems are also driving people away from Pittsburgh.

"Taxes are just absurd here. The taxes are just through the roof. Why would somebody want to live in a place like this? That charges you so much more than living anywhere else around us?" Wander said.

Wander said Pittsburgh is also scaring away businesses with things like the ban on gas drilling within the city limits.

"They never wanted to drill in the city in the first place. All that did was scare away Marcellus Shale and all that wealth that we could have brought into the city through location of offices," he said.

Wander holds dual citizenship and served in the Israeli army. He appeared in a 2012 WTAE story on the "Prepper" movement, showing how he stockpiles survival supplies in his home and raised chickens in his yard.

"Chickens we don't have anymore. That's because the city decided that we're not allowed to have chickens," said Wander.

In 2003, he got national attention for his website urging the U.S. to return the Statue of Liberty to France, because of French opposition to the war in Iraq. He now says "it was actually a joke, a practical joke that was very, very successful."

Wander's ability to draw media attention will be a talent he'll draw on as an underdog in the fall race for mayor of Pittsburgh.

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Forty years ago, one of the greatest boxing matches in history took place in an unlikely setting: the capital of the Philippines. Muhammad Ali's epic win over great rival Joe Frazier in 1975 became known as the "Thrilla in Manila."